Constructive realism

The Constructive Realism ( CR) is a technology developed by the Austrian philosopher Friedrich Wallner epistemological approach or an intellectual edifice.

His central concern is the insight into the relationality of scientific knowledge and the associated departure from the classical view, science can come to binding statements about reality. Instead, science constructed realities by starting from unaudited and culturally conditioned presuppositions. These realities make - represent micro-worlds within which the notion of truth as "local truth " receives its authority and obligation is given - subject-specific.

" The basic insight of Constructive Realism is that knowledge is not in constructing models or ' micro-worlds ', but the ' alienating ' understanding of the relationship between scientific constructs and their requirements. "

The central method to detect hidden and not unquestioned assumptions of each discipline is that of alienation.

The purpose of the CR

, The CR is understood as therapeutic philosophy that the scientific community wants to help the self-image. Constructive Realism ... does not claim to have insight into the world, but insight into the functioning of science. ' This approach wants the normativity of science, especially the sole claim to validity of western science ( " there is only one truth " ), prevent and hold the field for competing, alternative structuring attempts by " world".

The purpose of constructive realism is to circumvent the normativity of science. As standards are culture- specific (see social constructivism ) proposes the CR before to consider a science in its cultural dependence ( life world). If one has as the conditions on which is based the standard system of the studied science, analyzed the principle of normativity can be avoided when looking at the relevant science.

The historical background

The quest for knowledge of man is directed to the reality. The natural sciences seek to discover those laws, which are based on the phenomena of nature. To the ability to recognize reality, there are theoretical and empirical objections.

The empirical objections, experience counts that scientific beliefs often could not be maintained over short or long. Examples would be the release of the geocentric by the heliocentric world view or the phlogiston theory. The theory of relativity rejected the so convincing -looking Newtonian physics as a construct of which can not be found in reality, as there are no massless systems, and the results of quantum physics with the introduction of absolute or objective chance destroyed the notion of a comprehensive determinism and the predictability of the world (see Laplace demon). The scientists and philosophers of the Vienna Circle were concerned with the question of why it happened that findings that were considered to be beyond doubt, were refuted suddenly. They suspected error in the method as the cause of erroneous scientific principles. Ultimately, the attempt to specify criteria, the scientific principles - and were meant those which undoubtedly represent reality - to excel as such. Authors such as Paul Feyerabend it drew the conclusion that reduces to the famous statement that " anything goes" led: Rain dances are just as good as weather forecasts, election predictions no better than astrology '.

From the historically often proven failure of the secured knowledge acquisition in terms of a settled outside of man "reality" (objective, independently presented by people of all knowledge prior world), is also one of the theoretical objections to the possibility of knowledge of reality emerges: how does one arrive at the idea that human thought is able to recognize structures of reality? What have to do human concepts as consciousness phenomena with the forces and laws, it is postulated by those that they are in the world based on (could)? You should be able to relate the position of an " absolute spirit " who can observe both the contents of human consciousness and the relevant section of the world free of errors, to be able to judge whether what a person thinks about the reality, at least partially coincides with on how the reality is. The often put forward indication of the success of science and its predictions ( especially in the field of technology ) can not be taken as evidence for the basic correctness of the laws found, as well as with - from today's perspective - even completely false worldviews correct predictions could be made, for example, the prediction of lunar eclipses in the context of a geocentric (see History of the moon observation).

The issue raised by the Vienna Circle Method problem has been recognized as not umgehbares wissenschaftsinhärentes Problem: The Circle of subject and method. As long as you do not know the subject matter - because you would know it already, it would require yes no scientific research - one would have to study him as he is " really " use a reasonable method to the object. Choosing the right method presupposes, however, that you know the subject of the investigation already. Conversely, it means that the respective discipline always can find, so expect the method used in each case.

The empirical findings on the failure to be true -held record systems and the theoretical issues with regard to the mind led to a shift away from the view, science would describe reality. A philosophical consequences was the birth of constructivism: Science is not law, it invents them. Science does not speak about reality - and if she does, at most erroneously, their own condition is not mindful - but constructed realities: micro-worlds within which tune the respective set systems and also can be verified (ie, not so far failed to reality ), resulting in something that "local truth " can be called. The claim to knowledge of science is maintained by the knowledge claim is not directed to the correspondence with reality, but systematized parts of the life-world and micro worlds are interpreted in terms of the life world ..

For the ontology of the CR

The Constructive Realism distinguishes two clear world terms, reality - what human consciousness is facing - and reality - of the constructed world of science. Individual ( sub) disciplinary design services are referred to as micro-worlds, the culture-specific background living world.

The alienation in CR

The alienation ( Strangification ) is the central method in structural realism. In principle, it comes to a set of system s1 detach from his ( disciplinary ) context k1 and k2 be considered in a different context ( or more ) to get an understanding of the (implicit) to approximate conditions of scientific activities in the context of k1.

Alienation in their own methodology using the example of mathematics

In school, the rule of three is discussed ( the final bill ). 10 workers to build 1 prefabricated house in 10 days to 8 hours. How long need 20 workers for the same work? A particularly eager student figures out how long would need 1 million workers, and comes to 0.288 seconds. When he presented the result of proud, laugh teacher and class. The student does not understand the laughter, as he has not committed a computational error.

It is nonsense out there when the conditions of the area in which mathematics is applied, are not considered. The alienation brings the methodological requirements of mathematics to the fore - for example, that one can multiply equations with random numbers (not equal to zero or infinity ), without thereby changing their validity. These conditions are obviously different as those of the living world. The alienation works in this example with a reductio ad absurdum, thereby demonstrating that mathematics can not be applied one to one on the living world.

The following joke is based on the same principle: Savings Advisor to the customer: "With a monthly fee of only 100 euros you get paid after 1000 years, 100 million euros. That's what! "

Alienation of human relations in the statistics

How has the greatest chance to get to know the person who best fits into one? You could do the following consideration: the more you get to know potential partners, the greater the chance that the right thing is. So you should have an affair with as many. It appears, however, that in this strategy, not by a factor of 100 increases the chance of the best to find if you took 50 affairs 5000. Due to the alienation of human relations at the statistics, it turns out that human relationships are not quantifiable.

Alienation of human thought processes in brain functions

This example shows how a generally accepted alienation on a hard acceptable, if not adversarial ( " self-defeating " ) boils down to consistency. The output rate is the typical naturalistic reduction: "Thinking or thoughts are nothing but brain processes ", that is, human thinking is alienated in the context of biology. Since the brain is a physical entity, it is subject to itself and all its processes the laws of nature. The brain processes are therefore - apart from quantum mechanical coincidences - determined. If the brain thinks, so the thoughts are determined. If a thought but made ​​with causal necessity that (and not to inspect the conditions ) based on the biological principles of the brain, these thoughts can not express knowledge ( insight) into the true state of affairs, since the deterministic evoked thought in no discernible semantic ( content ) related to the themed issue are. The sentence " The brain thinks" is thus, if it should be so, in fact, as it maintains the set, no insight into the true state of affairs, since he himself was causally determined by the brain functions underlying laws of nature. Generalizing: Man is not capable of knowledge, if his thinking is determined by physical-chemical- biological laws of nature. This result, however, is absurd, since the argument based on the fact that the arguments be viewed as correct. It would amount to a convincing conclusion: " I recognize that I can not see " ..

Critique of traditional philosophy of science

According to Wallner classical epistemology is mistaken in the fact that she wants justify knowledge without presupposing knowledge here. Would it require the knowledge of the other, so it would also be possible to justify this. For this goal requires a knowledge of all sorts of things about looking position, but does not exist, and is not even fingierbar on speculation. The CR proposes a different approach on by he does not claim to normativity and descriptiveness: " ... we are concerned about showing how insights can identify themselves as such, without us to the given reality and the general accept liability claim. " in the field of philosophy of science Wallner applies accordingly to the conception of science as a description of reality. His arguments he pulls from scientific practice, where he sees a construction performance rather than a description. Here then also set the terms of realism and reality in structural realism. Another field of application of the CR is the problem of interdisciplinarity. To ensure this, the respective scientists need to move away from their own discipline and in another area - make " neutral ground ". This is one of the possibilities offered by the central method of the CR, the alienation.

Interdisciplinarity and CR

Wallner differs in structural realism four forms of interdisciplinarity:

In the instrumental interdisciplinarity results from other disciplines are used as a tool to treat along the own method each research question. Strictly speaking, these are but only limited to an interdisciplinary approach, since this information only - are to be taken, but not the question and methods in a cross-disciplinary discourse - that is, the "Material", by which then takes place the research process.

The universalizing interdisciplinarity, however, claimed just by a cross-disciplinary discourse to a more general and broader knowledge to knowledge of the whole can come. When leaving now but the methods of the respective subject in order to enter into discourse with another, so the question arises, along which methods for now, this discourse is to pass. This question has been but according to Wallner always unconsciously solved because at any time a certain discipline that specifies which asked and how to go about it. Wallner talks of management science. In the universalizing interdisciplinarity thus neither the choice of methods, nor the weighting of the question is answered.

In the explanatory interdisciplinarity a science is explained by methods of another science; the operation of a science is the subject of another science. Wallner plays in his "Eight Lectures on the Constructive Realism " by this approach using the example of a sociological study of physics. Now, however, such as the personal or socio-cultural reasons for a physicist to develop a particular theory, while interesting for the sociologist as an object, but not for the physics of relevance, since their objects are described independently of the private life of the individual scientist. It has to some extent so do it here with two objects of research, which are not identical to each other. Physics has therefore gained nothing thereby. The result so no insight into the methods used.

The alienating interdisciplinarity is to provide precisely this insight. Here, the scientists used a different, as the inventory of his common ways to structure its research. After this attempt, he returns to the usual procedure and to investigate whether in its assessment of the methods of selection and evaluation of the initial questions something has changed. This of course does not lead to a more general knowledge of the world ( a claim which was dropped in the CR anyway ), but to a better understanding of their own method.

Liability of Science in Structural Realism

The question of the liability of science remains after what has been said but still remains open. Success alone is not a criterion for the binding nature of a scientific method dar. The CR assumes that method and object form a circle. That it is necessary to study an object already know this beforehand and to have images of the latter. In any research process are in advance mitangenommen conditions that determine the type of method and will not be further justified. Making these conditions visible, is the result of alienation. "He (the CR) is realism insofar as it refers to experiences that we really act. He examines these actions but before the horizon of their requirements, ie he considers the human being as such, of his life, the world, society, etc. makes the fact evident that he tried, what actions are possible - that's " constructivist " ".

Reality and reality

In contrast to traditional metaphysics, which aims at a knowledge of reality, the CR is on this claim, and examines our actions in the process of cognition. " In other words. , If we apply the method of alienation, we give the old fiction that we approach by knowledge of reality, on " In the process, the alienation is omitted from the outset to distinguish between reflection and reality. The reflection recreated reality. The variety of designs different contexts are created and a change of contexts leads to new insights. An identity of reality and reality is explicitly rejected because of precisely this point of contact between knowledge and the world in the older theory of knowledge was a hotbed of problems.

Truth in Structural Realism

The CR does not work with an absolute notion of truth, but highlights the existence of local concepts of truth out. Wallner thereby increases first with the question of why the concept of truth in everyday life, although clearly, in epistemology, however, is highly problematic. A distinction is made between object-oriented speech and Metarede. For a just the right use of the terms is necessary, but the other requires an understanding of the same. We fail only on the proper use of the concept of truth, if we are to also need to understand him, so in the field of Metarede. Abandoning the concept of truth altogether, would mean that we could no longer reflect on the science and would reduce it to a purely instrumentalist level without any claim to knowledge gain. Wallner shows below on the basis of failure of Adäquationstheorie, Koheränztheorie Konsesustheorie and the truth that our understandings of truth suffer from a false assumption: namely, that the relationship between truth and reality is that of a figure. This falls well as the separation of spiritual science and natural science.

Natural science and the humanities

In the classical theory of science we are dealing with two types of science (and two kinds of reality ): the spiritual science that maps and ideas of science, nature maps. The latter may be construed only as a mere technique, if not their results are understandable communicated via the jargon out. The understanding, but which now constitutes the scientific character, the " domain of the so-called spiritual science " is different words produce the natural sciences - such as Wallner writes - a set of techniques to change reality. Wallner sheds now that they are then not necessary even to understand, but in a mere instrumentalism threaten to tip if they do not also make himself the object of their reflection. It is at this point that the humanities one whose field the understanding - ie to reflect on itself - is. So now science may still be scientific (ie knowledge produced and not only made ​​life easier ), so Wallner, but they must also undergo such a reflection, so that the strict separation of the humanities and natural sciences would have fallen.

Knowledge of the handling of information

Wallner defines the CR not as a doctrine but as a " work of the in-relation setting of information" and that those that are not usually in the relationship. Thus we come to knowledge of information, as opposed to object recognition. " That of Constructive Realism increased its activity is not the knowledge of the world, but it leads to a knowledge of the handling of information, so is a reflexive activity. Intentional manipulation is when it is directed at an object, reflexive, if it is aimed at himself " The CR thus leads to knowledge of the handling of information -. Example to the limits of their applicability. It shows what happens when a / s scientists / apply in a method. The limits of validity of a thesis to be visible against the background of the constructivist perspective in the CR. If we construct the object in the theory only, a different structure is possible at any time. However, the liability of the respective thesis is not undermined. " Constructivism indicates the sense in which a statement is authentic, and can thus indirectly open the field of non-commitment. " So there method and object are in a circle, on which is based the particular structuring of the world, the x made ​​in the theory (or to which those participating ), another structure is possible at any time, which sometimes refers to other such circles without one of them under the relevant reality - loses its binding force - which is of course a result of a construction performance. The aim of the CR, it is now that the designer himself is aware of his activities and reflects the information created by him. This claim by self-reflexivity is for Wallner a structural feature of human knowledge itself everywhere where people work only after the premisses of instrumentalism, no knowledge is obtained. Only the self-reflexivity is ever the criterion for scientific dar.

Contemplation and instrumentalism

In ancient Greece, the science was understood as a mere show in the world. However, Plato already describes the cognitive process of theoria so that the man altered. There is also involved a moral power. So it is a directed at the people act part of this understanding of science, for it is only through a change in its own man will get from the trivialities of everyday life to knowledge. This ancient concept developed - according to Wallner - in Western history along two poles: one is oriented to the function, and the other at the contemplation. Now, if these two sides have not thought together, breaks our image of science in a contemplative and an instrumental technical science. A purely instrumentalist science lost the activity and also the knowledge. The opposite of this would be an immediacy of knowledge which ultimately knows no difference between the knower and the thing known more. This knowledge and science are impossible, since both just assume that difference. Wallner now sees the ancient concept of science as wrong, and indeed to the effect that no man is what changed, but the world. Next Wallner compares his concept of reality with that of Plato. In its concept, it is assumed that reality could unchangeable stock. Now she closes the already out of the experience, which can take place only where change is possible. Right here lies a contradiction. Wallner's conception, however, shares the concept of world in the terms reality and reality. "The relationship of reality to reality is not direct, but one that is made on the action plans of man. " Man is here in two ways: firstly, in the construction of reality and also to the fact that he of himself this can guide structures in problem solving. The main change in addition to this definition of reality and reality is that the plot is a construction performance here, which relates to the reality. As with Plato, that is, the reality has also existed in the CR, but it is not arguable for epistemology.

The importance of contradiction in Structural Realism

Neither the immediate nor in instrumental knowledge ( see above ), there is space for a reflection on the knowledge. In the immediate recognition because they, they would reflect, would no longer be directly, and in the instrumental, because here the functioning presupposes as the primary criterion, a structural identity between thinking and being. The CR, however, states that reflexivity is a structural feature of knowledge. In terms of the contradiction it behaves similarly: in the immediate realization, he can not occur and in instrumental it is a sign of failure. Logic, since it is based on random set, and exchangeable basic assumptions, according to Wallner is valid only for a limited range. This includes the principle of contradiction one with. "This sentence has the character of an instruction. " Under this point of view it should read correctly: " Act so that you never imagining a set system in which two phrases are standing to each other in direct contradiction " In this formulation, the set includes the contradict its scope: the formation of sentences. Accordingly, the principle of contradiction is an instruction for language games. Since he is only a guide to action, it is possible to have him in mind. Language games of such can be found, for example, in Chinese philosophy. Knowledge is created not only by the construction of reality, but also when we encounter in the course of our use of their difficulties. Wallner but sees the role of science continues to dissolve the contradiction, the finding of epistemology but on the other hand in ways contradictory set of systems. "

Differentiation from other forms of constructivism

The Constructive Realism differs from radical constructivism that is omitted in radical constructivism to the concept of truth, without replacement would be offered for them.

The Erlangen School assumes that thinking is normalizable. The standards for this are to be derived from the action. The Constructive realism is, however, assume that the action is too diverse to be vorwegnehmbar.